Israeli Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and Palestinian Finance Minister Shokri Bshara have discussed in their meeting, last week, a plan regarding the monthly salaries of families of martyrs and captives, sources in Tel Aviv and Ramallah revealed Thursday.
The proposal states that Israel would retreat from its decision to deduct the value of the salaries amounting to 200 million shekels (USD65m) of the taxes and customs' funds. However, it dictates that Israel would continue to take these salaries but returns them to the Palestinian Authority (PA) through exempting it from paying the customs of fuel bought by it from Israel.
Kahlon has promised to consider the suggestion with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and so did the Palestinian minister.
The news was leaked to media on Thursday to test the public's reaction.
A high-rank official in the Israeli government said that this development came to prevent the economic collapse of the PA.
Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, director of JCPA’s Project on Regional Middle East Developments and former head of the Israeli Forces Military Intelligence Research Division, said that Israel backing off its stance is strategic wrongdoing and the warning of the Authority’s collapse is baseless.
The Authority is financially capable, and the proof is that it increased its payments to the captives and martyrs’ families by 11 percent since the beginning of the year.
Kuperwasser noted that researches show that the Palestinian president is trying to the intimidate the Western countries and Israel.
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